Frankly, Mr. Gunn’s comments are quite frightening. And no one has ever been able to explain to me, adequately, why we must be so hell-bent on ameliorating insurance company risk. It’s a risky game; we pay premiums, and in the event we need services, they pay out. That’s the deal. If you don’t like the deal, maybe you should be an agent or run an insurance company?

I think the American people are tired of having to bear the full brunt of everything; it’s another way for the elites (or the ‘haves’) to keep more money from honest, hardworking people. All ready this year, my deductible has been raised; there is a separate new one for specialist visits that must be met and all my co-pays went up. (And yet, so did my premiums!) I’m fairly young, in good health and I barely use insurance. The insurance company is getting quite a bit out of me right now, so pardon me if I get some back in kind when I’m older and in less robust health.

To continue to parse and pass along more and more to the American public is what forces people to consider things like *shock* *horror* universal healthcare.

It’s time the insurance companies stopped playing around, figuring ways to avoid responsibility, and just go back to accepting premiums and placing claims.

Basic coverage for everyone would be about the same(probably cheaper, actually), and everybody would have some kind of extra coverage they could sign up for for the things they’re most at risk for. Overall premiums should remain about the same, all told, and the cost of health care would probably drop, allowing insurance companies to offer cheaper premiums. In fact, I’d bet they do an end run around any legislation by offering major discounts if you agree to let them do a genetic screening of you as part of your exam.

Now, people for the most part choose where they live and that’s not an option for insurance, but someone has to pay for healthcare at some point, so it seems to me like you either go single payer national healthcare system, or you let the private insurance companies assign risk as best they can.

I live in New Orleans, so I’m certainly mistrustful of the insurance companies. What I’m trying to say is that I think the single-payer system is the only way to go.